Four new documentaries profile leading ladies from all over the globe--and they're coming to a TV near you!

 

Director Jonathan Demme captures the verve and perseverance of a civil-rights activist and lifelong Ninth Ward resident in PBS POV’s I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful (premieres September 20, 10 p.m.) as she works to rebuild her New Orleans neighborhood post-Katrina.

 

Two-part PBS series Half the Sky (premieres October 1 and 2) follows human-rights activists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (along with such celebrities as Diane Lane and America Ferrera) as they shine a light on women’s struggles around the world for a doc as hopeful as it is heartbreaking.

 

 

Director Rory Kennedy paints an intimate and moving portrait of her hardworking mother, Robert Kennedy’s widow, in HBO’s Ethel (premieres mid-October).

 

Girl Model (premieres winter on PBS) takes an insider look at the modeling industry, following the career of 13-year-old Siberian villager Nadya and the conflicted modeling scout who discovered her.

 

By Lisa Butterworth

 

This appears in our Aug/Sept 2012 issue with cover girl Tavi Gevinson. Subscribe now.

All images courtesy of their respective networks.